


Negotiations

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: Show Me Your Teeth [10]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-06
Updated: 2012-06-06
Packaged: 2017-11-07 00:38:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/424987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The three finally negotiate and name what happened between them.</p><p> </p><p>For the prompt <a href="http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/19632.html?thread=46099632#t46099632">"I was nothing more than an almost innocent bystander."</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Negotiations

It was odd returning to their rental home once Ariadne was discharged from the hospital. They hadn't been there very long before she had gotten shot on a job and then fallen into limbo. She remembered them, remembered the job and her role in it all; neither Arthur nor Eames would have wanted to mention it, but they had been afraid that everything would have been lost in limbo and she would wake up an empty shell. She nodded in all the right places when the nurses went through the discharge instructions and seemed like a reasonable person. Only her lovers knew something was a little bit off, though it was too difficult to put their finger on it. Ariadne didn't really recognize the rental space as home, and her eyes drifted over everything as if assessing it for structural damage.

Arthur was wondering what kind of damage limbo had left on her psyche, and Eames was left castigating himself for not protecting her enough. Plus, there was the fact that she had sacrificed herself for a job when she didn't need to. For whatever reason, she hadn't put enough faith in their relationship.

Of course, if Eames was going to be brutally honest, their relationship was more nebulous and ill defined than it really should have been. They had all crashed into each other after his infection; the wolf took over his instincts and the three of them had all been reacting to the consequences of his overtures. It had only been a few months together, and not once did he ever explicitly state how much he had needed them or what they had meant to him. Confronting the possibility of losing Ariadne to limbo had forced Eames to say the words for the first time, though it had been something he had felt as vitally necessary.

It had been nice to act and react on pure instinct, but she needed more from him. Arthur needed more than that, too.

Arthur was hesitant to really press for more; that had always been his problem where Ariadne was concerned. Though he had feelings for her prior to Eames' infection, he had never pushed or let her know he had them. He simply reacted, not shaping a potential future with her. That had allowed Eames to stake his claim first and then push to mark Arthur as his. Eames rather doubted that Arthur understood Eames' intentions prior to their trip into limbo to bring Ariadne back.

"Are we going to talk with her about what happened?" Eames asked Arthur.

"About limbo, you mean?" Arthur asked, going through the laundry. He actually liked doing the laundry; Eames had thought him crazy when he mentioned that fact, but Arthur liked the mindless repetition of it rather than the chore itself. That allowed him to think as he moved, which usually helped him puzzle out kinks in theories.

"About _us,"_ Eames corrected with a shake of his head. He took the shirt from Arthur's hands and tossed it into the appropriate basket. "She shouldn't have sacrificed herself for a bloody job."

"She didn't think she was doing that, I'm sure," Arthur replied reasonably.

Eames had no doubt that it was how Arthur justified it to himself. He tended to have overly large blind spots where his loved ones were concerned.

He was about to open his mouth to reply when he heard a hitching breath, almost like a gasp of shock and fear. He turned away from Arthur, frowning. The point man didn't hear the sound, it was much too soft for that. Only his preternatural hearing allowed him to recognize the sound for what it was, and when it repeated, he was able to tell where it was coming from.

The sunroom.

Ariadne was in the sunroom, where she had planned to spend the afternoon sketching. As it was her normal habit prior to this last job, neither man had really thought much of it. She liked to sketch random mazes or bits of architecture that came to mind, some of which ultimately wound up in her dream designs. Other days, she sketched people she knew, the things she saw out of the windows, whatever she had seen on TV. She liked using pencils, charcoal or watercolor pencils on different weight papers, and sometimes had drawn her lovers in various sensual poses just to tease them.

Arthur followed Eames when he took off for the sunroom at a loping gait, a noise escaping his throat that sounded like a concerned growl.

Ariadne was sitting at the desk, facing the window. The side of her face was visible from the doorway, a lock of wavy hair obscuring her eyes from their view. She was breathing heavily, her left hand clutching at her thighs. One of the gel pens she favored was caught in a tight white knuckled grip in her right. Her sketchbook was open to an empty page in front of her, and Eames was suddenly certain it was that page that terrified her.

"Darling?" he murmured softly. She didn't seem to respond, even when he repeated himself in a louder tone. "Ariadne!"

She half turned to look at them, her hair falling in a thick curtain to cover half of her face. Her eyes were wide and full of fear, and Arthur started forward as soon as he saw that. Eames had never known her to have a panic attack before, and he felt utterly helpless watching her wheeze and tremble in fear.

Arthur bent down and pressed his lips to her temple. Eames came around to her other side and rubbed at her shoulders gently. "You're okay," Arthur was telling her. "We're here, we'll always be here for you."

As Ariadne took in shuddering breaths, Eames mouthed the side of her neck as he wrapped his arms around her torso. "What is it, Ariadne? What's gotten you so frightened? How can we help you fix it?"

"It's like the beach," she whispered between wheezes. "Like bleached bones..."

Eames remembered those sandy beaches and dunes in her limbo. The dunes had been shaped like skulls, and the sand had been very white indeed. "You're here now," he murmured against her neck. "With us. That beach wasn't real, and this paper isn't like that beach."

"But it could be. It _could."_

Gently taking the pen from her hand, Arthur uncapped it and drew a large diagonal line across the page. "Now it's not blank."

"I can't..."

"Try again later," Eames said softly, closing the book. He had her rise to her feet, and she was caught between her lovers. They each bent their heads down to kiss her and hold her close. "You matter," he murmured as he stroked her back. "Let us take care of you."

"This isn't right," Ariadne murmured, shaking her head. "We're supposed to take care of _you,_ Eames. We have to protect you when the full moon comes..."

Eames pulled his head back and looked at her with a sad expression. "It's days away, darling. And right now you need it more." He cradled her face in one of his large hands as Arthur kept his arms wrapped around her. "The both of you... Nothing has meaning if you're not with me. I should have said something like that before you fell into limbo. That job was not worth your life, Ariadne. You shouldn't have sacrificed yourself for it."

She was shaking her head to contradict him. "This isn't any different from a dream in some ways, Eames. Things just happen and you don't exactly know how, and then everything just falls into place without question. But it isn't real, I know that. Sooner or later it's going to end..."

"No," Arthur said quietly, lips by her ear. At the same exact time, Eames snapped "Never."

"It's all right," Ariadne murmured. "I'm the architect. I build things that aren't real, that will never last. I know that, and I'm all right with it. I've come to terms with that long ago. So I built something here that isn't real, and it'll just fall apart."

Eames kissed her soundly. _"No._ This is real. This is deadly serious, Ariadne. I killed the bloke that shot you. I tore him to pieces and left him there. I passed it off to our employer as a complication that would prove it couldn't possibly be him behind the break in, and he bought that. But it was because he hurt you, because I couldn't stand the sight of your blood and seeing you so pale." He kissed her again, slow and tender this time. "This is real, Ariadne. I would never do such a thing if it wasn't."

"This may not be the right time," Arthur began when Ariadne grew so very still in their arms.

"No," Eames disagreed. "Because that's why you thought it would be easy to throw it away, isn't it? You didn't think this was real. You didn't think it meant anything." He grasped her face in his hands and spared Arthur a glance. "We can't wait for a right time for this. There's never a right time. Something always gets in the way." He looked back to Ariadne's wide, shocked eyes. "A life with you terrifies the fuck out of me, but the thought of life without you is worse. It's not even worth living. I'm sorry it took you getting hurt to make me say it."

Ariadne pulled away. "I can't deal with this right now," she blurted, then ran from the room.

***

Ariadne was sitting on the back porch, staring out at the yard without really seeing it. She had her arms wrapped around herself as if she was cold, even though it wasn't that chilly outside. It startled her when Arthur arrived with a jacket to place around her shoulders. She unwound her arms to hold the jacket around herself as he settled onto the back porch beside her. "Hey," he began in a soft tone.

She took in his drawn expression. "Hey."

"He means well, you know."

"I know. Execution sometimes leaves a lot to be desired."

Arthur's lips twisted into something of a smirk. "It was always that way, as much as he never liked to admit it." He reached out and touched her hand gently. "I still think he should have waited, rather than start in right away. We have no idea how many lifetimes you've lived before we found you and brought you back."

She gave him a wan smile. "I stopped keeping track after a while." She looked down at his hand over hers. "I started having families after a while. It felt nice, but it wasn't real. None of it was, and I knew that."

"But it kept you busy," Arthur guessed.

Ariadne nodded. "But then, even in that world, everything could go wrong in an instant. One of the first lifetimes, there was this job that went downhill fast. I didn't even see what happened." She gave Arthur a self-deprecating smile. "Rather like the one that sent me down there in the first place, if you think about it."

"What was it in that lifetime that went wrong?"

Ariadne shrugged and looked off in in the distance. "Everything. Nothing. I was nothing more than an almost innocent bystander."

"That doesn't sound like you," Arthur teased.

She turned back to look at him with a small smile. "It isn't? Eames was right about this whole relationship, you know. It just happened, everything spinning out of control." She paused. "But then, everything about my work in dream share was an accident. I was almost innocent before that, and everything changed that day Cobb came to talk about me about the Fischer job. I haven't been in control of my life in a very long time."

"What would you do differently, then?"

That gave her pause. "I don't know, to be honest. I love the work. I love you, I love Eames." She tightened the jacket around her shoulders. "Maybe I wasn't even innocent. I never blinked when Cobb told me this wasn't strictly legal. Your telling me about the realities of dream share didn't stop me. I just kept asking about the architecture."

Arthur smiled at the memory. "Yes, you did." He pulled her against him and she tucked her head against his shoulder. "And you helped on the job, and dove right into this life. Maybe you never planned the three of us falling together, but we did." His arm settled heavily around her and his fingertips brushed against her exposed bit of arm. "Has it been terrible?"

"Only in the sense that I've been afraid for Eames at the full moon."

"There is that," Arthur agreed.

"I'm not afraid _of_ him. He won't hurt us. But he'd hurt himself or do something stupid."

"It _is_ Eames," Arthur replied, which earned him a laugh. "Maybe we should have discussed things more as it went along, but I don't have experience with this sort of thing. I wouldn't even know where to start."

"I do," Ariadne murmured. "The same place you would start if it was just one on one."

"I will be faithful to the both of you," Eames said from behind them. Ariadne and Arthur startled; neither had heard him come in or realized he had been listening in. For someone with his size, Eames could be very stealthy. Since turning into a werewolf, those skills had become even more amplified. Likely because of his increased acuity in hearing and sight, he was able to tell when others were aware of him or not.

"Eames..." Ariadne began in a soft voice.

Eames' eyes were so very blue, his gaze intense like a laser. "I will discuss the big things with you both, try to come up with a solution we all can live with. How does that sound? Should we talk about getting a place together?" He sat down on Ariadne's other side, his large hand coming to rest over Arthur's hand and Ariadne's arm. He had an earnest expression on his face, as open and honest as he knew how to be. "I can't promise much more about the future, but I would if I could do it."

"I hadn't thought it was real, you know," Ariadne began softly. "I thought it was just us messing around, nothing serious."

"Wolves mate for life," Eames remarked. "I'd want at least that long."

"I've had dream versions of you," Ariadne said softly, looking over at him. There was a tension in his eyes; Ariadne probably hadn't been able to see it before, or had simply glossed over what she had seen as fears coming from being a werewolf. It never occurred to her that Eames would have insecurities as well, that he would _need_ her. She turned and took in Arthur's stoic expression. He was waiting for her pronouncement. He was always waiting on her decision, rarely pushing forward when she wasn't ready.

Some things she had gotten right in her dreams down in limbo. Other things she had gotten so very, very wrong.

Ariadne smiled at each man in turn. "They pale in comparison to the real thing." 

Eames leaned in and nuzzled her neck, teeth grazing her skin. Ariadne lifted her chin, and his teeth gently closed over the area above her carotid. His tongue grazed the skin caught between his teeth, and his hand tightened over Arthur's hand on her arm. She understood the gesture as some kind of instinctual thing; there were more and more of those gestures as the months went on and he was truly coming into himself as a werewolf.

The gesture might be instinct taking over, maybe exerting dominance over her or marking her as his territory. Whatever the reason, it was hot and sent a shiver down Ariadne's spine.

Arthur picked up on that and leaned in on her other side, pressing a kiss to her neck. His touch was softer, with less of an edge of danger, but no less erotic. "Do you believe this is real, then?" he asked her, lips hovering above her pulse point.

"It's real." There was absolute certainty in her tone, though her gaze remained off in the distance rather than fixed on either man. "Both of you are the real thing. I think I am most of the time. I have nightmares I can't remember when I wake up. And I can't design anything right now." Her eyes closed and she tipped her head back. "I look at the page and I panic. I can't do it."

"Then you don't," Eames replied, hands firm over her skin. "If it comes back, it comes back. But even if you never design a dream again, I'd still love you. I'd still need you."

Ariadne opened her eyes and turned to look at him. "Even if I can't dream again? Even if I can't ever work with you again?"

"There's more to us than dreaming, darling," Eames replied.

"If you really don't think you can design the mazes," Arthur said slowly, "there are other things you can do in dream share if you still wanted to stay involved."

"I don't think I'd like to be an extractor," Ariadne told him, turning to look at his calm face.

"Research," he returned. "Not necessarily point like me, but helping to research the backgrounds, making suggestions for models, outlines for other architects to follow." His hands traveled down her arms in a soothing gesture. "Or we get that one," he nodded toward Eames with a wry expression "to teach you about documentation and you can help forge them and lay paper trails online. You don't have to ever go under again if you don't want to."

She blinked slowly. "You don't think less of me for this, then?"

"You spent God only knows how many lifetimes in limbo," Eames told her seriously. "And here you are with us. The strength of will for that..." He leaned in and inhaled the scent of her deeply, his eyes closed to better savor the scent. "I would never think less of you, no matter what you choose to do."

Arthur didn't reply after Eames fell silent, but remained a supportive presence beside her, fingers linked through hers. He didn't always rely on words with her, but she could still feel the intent in his touch now that she knew what to look for.

"I can't design anything right now," she began softly, looking out in the distance. "And I really don't want to go under. I don't know if I ever will, but it might be too soon to tell. Cobb went back to it eventually. For right now, I've had more than enough of dreaming with a PASIV."

"He might've been a bit addled by the running from the law bit," Eames pointed out. "He didn't have much of a choice, since he didn't have other marketable skills for the illegal set."

Arthur nodded. "There isn't much out there for an architect with a record." He looped an arm around her waist. "But you don't have one. You can do whatever you want."

"I'll have documents done up in any name you like if you want to do legitimate architect work," Eames said, mouth near her temple again.

"We'd have to settle somewhere on a permanent basis for that," Ariadne told him. She hadn't considered that possibility seriously after the Fischer job; the allure of dreaming had been too irresistible at the time. Now, though...

Eames shrugged. "Not exactly a hardship."

"I can rig up enough security precautions wherever we settle, get contingency plans in place if the location is ever compromised..." Arthur kissed Ariadne's cheek. "It's not that difficult, really. The hard part is figuring out which city to settle in."

"It would have to have a large international airport," Eames suggested. "Any of those cities would be large enough for us to get lost in."

Ariadne nodded, then leaned in and kissed him on the lips. It was more than a chaste kiss but wasn't quite close enough to the erotic to get Eames started. She then turned her head slightly and gave Arthur the same kiss. "Then that's what I want. A place to be a real world architect and still be with you both. I don't want to go into dream share again. I'd say I don't even want to dream again, but..."

"When you're ready," Arthur said quietly, "you can go under with us."

"You can show us that field you used to dream about," Eames suggested. "The one where we both fucked Arthur silly."

That earned him a startled bit of laughter from Ariadne, and he licked her pulse. It was calmer now, and Eames could smell the slight change in her scent. Whatever anxiety she had earlier about what the three of them could be was gone now. He didn't think she would panic at the sight of a blank sheet of paper anymore, but he wasn't willing to test that theory.

"So we'll be okay, then," she murmured, as if she had to state it out loud to make it real.

Perhaps she did. For the longest time none of them had actually voiced anything that was happening between the three of them. That had left her feeling out of sorts and thinking her only value was in the realm of a job.

It was a lesson they almost had to lose her to learn.

"Yes," Eames said, nodding against her neck. "We'll be okay."

Arthur kissed the top of her head. "We'll _make_ it okay."

That settled matters, and Ariadne relaxed between the two of them. This was real, and finally felt like something she could truly build something from.

The End


End file.
